Josephine Decker
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SXSW: Producer Dan Schoenbrun and Five Directors on their Dreamy Anthology Film, collective:unconscious
In November, 2014, Dan Schoenbrun threw down a provocative artistic challenge on Kickstarter. The former IFP-staffer, sometime Filmmaker writer, and current Film Partnerships lead at the crowdfunding platform conceived of an anthology film that would charge a stellar group of up-and-coming directors with adapting each other’s nocturnal visions. Each director would write down a dream and give it to Schoenbrun, who’d then assign it to another director. As you’ll read below, the pairings wound up being more natural and forced, with the intent being not a VHS-style horror anthology but rather a more diverse film unlocking all the meanings dreams, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2016 -
Watch: Josephine Decker’s Flashes of Brilliance
A considerable crowd of critical praise has coalesced around the work of Josephine Decker, most notably this “A Star is Born” piece from her longtime champion Richard Brody. Kevin B. Lee at Fandor put forth a more tempered assessment of Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (ending their week run at the IFP Media Center today), but he also compiled this beautiful, elliptical montage of the imagery in the two films. Narrative and/or stylistic misgivings aside, it is undoubtedly clear that Decker buttresses her films with a visceral atmosphere, achieved through fine details, ethereal lighting and playful camerawork, […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 20, 2014 -
Dan Schoenbrun on Kickstarting collective:unconscious
Some Kickstarter campaigns sell themselves. collective:unconscious had me at, “Five of NYC’s most adventurous filmmakers are working together to adapt each other’s dreams.” The five filmmakers in question are Frances Bodomo, Lauren Wolkstein, Josephine Decker, Daniel Carbone and Lily Baldwin, and the project’s curator cum ringleader is Dan Schoenbrun, Film Partnerships Lead at Kickstarter, who previously supported several of the filmmakers’ other projects as Associate Director of Programming at IFP. Filmmaker spoke with Schoenbrun about the conception of the project, the series timeline and the protocol for working as a collective. Donate to the campaign here. Filmmaker: What was the genesis of […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 19, 2014 -
The Reagans and Sex Parties: Recapping Female Sexual Fantasies in Film
“So many fantasies are fear based, so I can understand why you’d want Ronald Reagan shoving cake in your mouth,” said Amy Seimetz. She was responding to a particular fantasy from an anonymous audience member after a screening of Josephine Decker’s Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, nearing the midway point in its one week run at the IFP Media Center. Seimetz and Decker, along with Mild and Lovely d.p. Ashley Connor, Ry Russo-Young, Emily Carmichael, and Celia Rowlson-Hall were all in attendance for an interactive panel on Female Sexual Fantasies in Film. The filmmakers began with a discussion that centered on the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 17, 2014 -
“We Have to Make a Creepy Movie in These Woods”: Director Josephine Decker and DP Ashley Connor
Since premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild & Lovely, the remarkably assured debut feature-length films from Josephine Decker (one of the 25 New Faces of Film of 2013), have received much praise and bewilderment throughout their international festival circuit run. It speaks to Thou Wast‘s uncategorizable nature that it played at the celebrity-touted AFI Fest, the indie stalwart BAMcinemaFest, and the heavily-genre-oriented Fantasia International Film Festival. Experimental narratives with an intense focus on the frightening extremes of sexuality, the musically-inclined films feature a remarkable blend of both visual and literary poetry; everyone from Onur Tukel to […]
by Erik Luers on Nov 13, 2014 -
When Restoration Met Distribution
As CEO of the Los Angeles-based creative studio and postproduction house Cinelicious, Paul Korver had the unsettling feeling that too many deals were passing him by. The preferred film scanning and restoration vendor for Criterion and Alamo Drafthouse, Cinelicious was also making a name for itself as a digital intermediate supervisor. Touring the festival circuit with the likes of Boyhood and Prince Avalanche, Korver found himself in conversation with various rights holders who were looking to restore films but without the funds to do so. What if, he thought, Cinelicious had a distribution arm to monetize that restoration investment? Thus […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Oct 20, 2014 -
IFP Announces its New Theatrical Platform “Screen Forward” and its First Five Theatrical Screenings
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker Magazine‘s parent organization, announced the first five projects to get weeklong theatrical runs at the state of the art Made In NY Media Center’s theater as part of the Screen Forward program. Starting October 17th, the program will give filmmakers in the process of self-distribution the unique opportunity to gain a much-coveted NYC theatrical week-run, with IFP working with each filmmaking team on comprehensive audience engagement and grassroots outreach strategies, publicity support, coverage in Filmmaker Magazine, and a revenue split to all participating filmmakers. The fall slate includes: Josephine Decker’s Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely; Paul Harrill’s Something, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Sep 18, 2014 -
2014 Sarasota Film Festival Award Winners
I made the un-journalistic decision to forgo last night’s closing awards ceremony at the Sarasota Film Festival for a screening, but judging by the recipients alone, the event was a successful one. Sarasota’s programming, while eclectic and strong, can prove an interesting match for its respective audience. I witnessed about 10 walkouts during the astonishing Stray Dogs, and when the credits arrived after a languid 138 minutes, someone shot up in the back of the theater to wonder, “did anyone like that film?” I chuckled but did not raise my hand. Other hybrid, art house films faired better. Nearly every local I […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 13, 2014 -
Berlinale 2014: Josephine Decker on Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Butter on the Latch.
At every festival, there are “did you see that?” moments which create a buzz among audiences and critics. One such early example at this year’s Berlinale came midway through Josephine Decker’s hypnotic, farm-set thriller Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, when the point of view of a violent, ambiguously-rendered sexual encounter suddenly switches to that of a cow, through whose eyes we see the next few scenes. It’s a playful, idiosyncratic touch which recalls the chimp’s flashback in Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, although it would be wrong to attempt to draw obvious comparisons between Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and […]
by Ashley Clark on Feb 8, 2014 -
First Announcements from Robust Berlinale Slate Include Two Josephine Decker Titles
The Berlinale has a rather hefty program: Competition, Out of Competition, Special, Panorama, Forum, Forum Expanded, Generation, Perspective, Retrospectives — and that gets us about halfway there. In the last few days, three section lineups have trickled out of the press office, offering Berlin’s signature mix of international auteurs, Sundance holdovers and the downright esoteric. Familiar titles for a plebe like me include the Park City world premieres 52 Tuesdays; Boyhood; Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and God Help The Girl, as well as the out of competition, Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux starring Beauty and the Beast — which appears to be more Disney than Cocteau. […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 16, 2014
